More than ten li from Zizhou, Lion Ridge stretched across the mountains ahead like a crouching lion.
The sun was setting in the west, and the black smoke had finally stopped spreading. For the first time in six days, the sounds of battle had ceased. The trees near the mountainside, burned to charcoal in the flames, were reflected in the light of the setting sun, giving off a strange, quiet atmosphere.
There were still people running between one defensive position and another, soldiers still reinforcing the lines and checking the artillery emplacements. People gazed toward the Jin army’s positions ahead, speaking only in low voices.
“You think the Jin dogs will come again today?”
“Don’t think about it. If they come, we’ll kill the bastards!”
“I heard we won at Wangyuan Bridge. Took down Wanyan Xiebao.”
“The men Mr. Ning led—remember? Those who pulled back from the Second Company… Xiebao thought he had thirty thousand men, wasn’t enough to satisfy his arrogance, so he went straight for Mr. Ning…”
“How did the fight go…”
“Still not clear…”
Amid such whispering, golden sunlight swept across the valley ahead. The Jurchens’ restraint and quiet had now lasted more than an hour.
A little behind the mountain was the wounded soldiers’ camp. After the battlefield had remained unusually quiet for a long while, wounded men, leaning on canes and wrapped in bandages, came out of their tents to gaze at the ridge of Lion Ridge in the distance.
“What’s going on?”
People asked one another this.
In the hot air balloon, someone was rapidly waving signal flags below, reporting every movement in the Jurchen camp. Senior staff officers waited directly below to make sure no important sign was missed.
The blocking battles at Lion Ridge and Xiukou had lasted nearly six days. In the records of later ages, they would often be overshadowed by the epoch-making significance and glory of the great victory at Wangyuan Bridge, and within the five-month-long southwestern campaign as a whole, they too often seemed unimportant. But in fact, they were the crucial pivot on which the victory at Wangyuan Bridge rested.
Over those six days, Qu Zhengyan and Yu Zhongdao held the line at Xiukou, while Han Jing and Pang Liu’an fought at Lion Ridge. Although the Jurchens had pinned their hopes on Xiebao’s forces, which had crossed the mountains, to work some trick against Ning Yi, at these two points—Lion Ridge and Xiukou—they had shown not the slightest slackness or letup either. Their repeated waves of attack had stretched the already thin Huaxia Army lines to their very limit; the slightest misstep could have brought total collapse.
Although the terrain and the artillery still gave them some defensive advantage for the time being, over the six days the Huaxia Army had suffered losses of up to seven thousand men across both fronts. In some respects, this rate of attrition was actually worse than what had been experienced during the defense of Huangming County and Yushui Creek.
Especially on the Lion Ridge front, after Wanyan Zonghan’s command banner appeared, the Jin soldiers’ morale surged. Zonghan, Balishu, and the others brought to bear all their years of battlefield command and troop-deployment skill, using elite soldiers to keep shaking the mountain defenses again and again, concentrating their breakthrough efforts on a single point. At times, even the Huaxia Army soldiers participating in the defense found it hard to tell where the losses were heaviest or the pressure greatest, only realizing Zonghan’s true tactical intent once some position had already been broken. At such moments, all they could do was redeploy and try to retake the position from the Jin soldiers.
This was the gap that always existed, on the tactical level, between the Huaxia Army’s commanders and a Jurchen general of Zonghan’s caliber. But in terms of individual soldier quality and small-unit tactical coordination at the grassroots level, the Huaxia Army had already left these so-called “invincible at ten thousand” Jurchen soldiers well behind.
Among the units, it was the Second Division under Pang Liu’an—who had once lost Huangming County—that fought with especially fierce valor. Facing Balishu, their “old enemy,” the Second Division’s soldiers, harboring a determination to avenge their earlier humiliation, at times even abandoned their usual steady, defense-focused style, showing the most resolute fighting spirit in the repeated struggles over various positions.
This fighting spirit was of course partly due to the work of the political officers, but it was also because Division Commander Pang Liu’an had repeatedly set aside thoughts of life and death, several times personally leading troops to the front. To protect their commander, the brigade and regiment commanders under the Second Division took it upon themselves each time to shoulder the heaviest burdens first.
On the Jurchen side, Balishu personally charged into battle to break through the lines at one point. But after seizing a position, he was met with a furious counterattack from the Second Division’s soldiers; one squad even tried to block Balishu’s escape route so that the artillery could bombard the position regardless of who was struck. The artillery did not go that far, but the Second Division’s attitude was enough to force Balishu to retreat in disgrace.
In truth, what stayed in the hearts of the Second Division’s soldiers was not only the blood debt of comrades who had died at Huangming County, but also the fact that some soldiers had failed to break out and were still, even now, in Jurchen hands. Perhaps this was the greatest knot lodged in the soldiers’ hearts.
The fierce, repeated fighting at Lion Ridge continued until Army Commander He Zhicheng kept pulling lightly wounded soldiers, militia, and remaining combat-capable forces still moving through the mountains from the rear and throwing them into the Lion Ridge front, finally managing to hold this rather precarious line. Had it not been so, by the twenty-eighth, Han Jing would not even have been able to spare his cavalry force of over a thousand men, and it would have been very difficult to quickly sweep up and conclude matters after the great battle at Wangyuan Bridge.
The Jin army’s ceasefire and hesitation that afternoon were clearly a response to news from the Wangyuan Bridge battle, but the Huaxia Army commanders at the front did not let their guard down. He Zhicheng and Pang Liu’an kept reminding the frontline troops to reinforce their defenses, and made no formal announcement about the news from Wangyuan Bridge, to avoid the soldiers growing complacent and being caught off guard in the Jurchens’ final counterattack.
Around the second quarter of the hour of You, He Zhicheng, Pang Liu’an, and the others, standing by the road behind Lion Ridge, saw a line of carts coming from Wangyuan Bridge, with a cavalry escort of about a hundred men riding ahead. Ning Yi was among the horsemen. He rode up close and dismounted. He Zhicheng smiled and said, “With Mr. Ning personally in the field, this battle is surely decided… it wasn’t easy.”
His face too bore the marks of gunpowder smoke, and as he spoke, there were tears welling in his eyes. Beside him, Pang Liu’an, his uniform already stained with blood, was currently acting Division Commander of the Second Division due to the earlier defeat at Huangming County. He saluted Ning Yi. “The Second Division of the Fifth Huaxia Army was ordered to defend the Lion Ridge front. We have not disgraced our mission.”
“Thanks to all of you.”
Normally, given Ning Yi’s temperament, he might have made some witty remark, but not this time. He returned their salutes and walked forward. Pang Liu’an glanced back at the carts behind them. “So this is the ‘Dijiang’?”
Ning Yi nodded. “Actually, the whole concept was already there back at Xiaocang River. The final version was hand-built over the course of a year. It wasn’t until we got to the southwest that things really got moving—it took several years, and no fewer than two hundred people in the First Military Industry Works died or were maimed for it, scrimping and saving to slowly grind this thing out. We were originally worried whether we’d have enough. Thankfully, Xiebao ran right into it, which helped make it worthwhile.”
Perhaps recalling the course of those years, his tone was solemn, though not tense—a solemnity carrying a certain sense of relief. After walking on a little further, he added:
“Everyone else is still at Wangyuan Bridge. We took over twenty thousand prisoners, and it’s not easy to guard them—it’ll take some time to sort it all out cleanly. We were worried the Jurchens might go berserk over here, so we brought these ahead first. Originally there were over six hundred rounds. Before the battle started, we worried whether it would be enough, whether it could deal the Jurchens the most painful blow possible in the first engagement, but in the end we used fewer than three hundred—how did Zonghan react on this side?”
“Very quickly. The old ginger is the spiciest.” He Zhicheng smiled. Ahead lay the mountain road; he raised a hand, then looked back again. “These carts…”
“Slowly haul them up. Some may need to go by pack horse—no rush, just find a good spot.” Ning Yi smiled. “In actual testing, the range is normally over four hundred zhang. Until they find a way to counter it, that should be enough to give Zonghan quite a headache.”
“However, Zonghan has already taken precautions.”
“…So fast?”
“It started a little less than half an hour ago—their lines are pulling back,” He Zhicheng said. “At first it was just a simple retreat, probably a reaction to the defeat at Wangyuan Bridge, and it looked somewhat hasty. But over the last quarter hour, there have been many adjustments—small movements, but very methodical.”
The group walked up the mountain slope together, crossed the high ground along the ridge, and in the light of the setting sun saw the full state of the Lion Ridge battlefield: stretch after stretch of ground stained red with blood, pit after pit scorched black by shellfire. Ahead, in the Jin army’s camp, the great tent and command banner still fluttered in the wind. The Jurchens had built a simple wooden palisade, with a tangle of wooden stakes outside it—the retreat of the forward troops had left their whole formation looking defensive, and the shifting and relieving of units within the camp still seemed to be ongoing.
Ning Yi raised his telescope to look over at that side, while He Zhicheng and the others explained beside him: “…From what we’ve observed over the last half hour, part of the force is withdrawing toward the mountain pass to the rear. The retreat is most obvious at the front lines. The tents behind the wooden wall haven’t moved, and it still looks like there are people inside, but pooling the intelligence from all our observation points, the Jurchens are, in a large-scale redeployment, pulling the soldiers out of the forward tents. Also, looking at the high ground of the mountain pass to the rear, people had already been seen earlier hauling iron cannons up there—it looks like they mean to block the road once they retreat.”
“Zonghan and his men really are outstanding figures of their age,” Ning Yi murmured, letting out a breath.
Beside him, Chief Engineer Lin Jingwei was also watching the scene with curiosity, and now spoke up. “He truly is a veteran commander who has dominated the field for thirty years. If I were in his position, I doubt I would believe, within a single hour, that such a marvel as rocket shells could even exist.”
“Even if he believed it, it’d be hard for his mind to wrap around it,” someone else said.
“Facing reality is the basic quality of a great general. Whatever the case, the Wangyuan Bridge battlefield really did see the appearance of firearms capable of reaching four or five hundred zhang. He has no choice but to respond to that fact—otherwise, is he going to wait and confirm it again only after Dijiang comes crashing down on his own head?” Ning Yi said, telescope still in hand, thinking as he spoke. Then he smiled. “Still, you can all go ahead and praise him a bit more—write it into the history books later. It’ll make us look even more impressive.”
Everyone laughed. Someone said, “If Zonghan has already made preparations, our rockets may not manage to catch them by surprise a second time. The Jurchen main camp is on the move right now—should we seize this chance and quickly bring the rockets up, blast their camp with another round?”
He Zhicheng and the others exchanged glances, most of them falling into thought. Ning Yi, head lowered, was clearly turning the matter over in his mind too. He had just said that facing reality was the basic quality of a great commander, but in truth, he found himself somewhat admiring the speed with which Zonghan had made his decision and confronted reality. If it were himself—if he were still the person he’d once been—facing such a sudden blow back in the business world, could he have accepted the reality that quickly? Especially with his own son caught in disaster at the same time? He had no confidence that he could have.
And if they threw more rockets now, how much good would it really do?
Ning Yi licked his lips. “Show weakness where there is strength, and strength where there is weakness. Set the rocket launchers up, guard against them feigning weakness to draw us into a counterattack, but hold off on firing directly for now. Beyond killing a few people and giving them a scare, it likely wouldn’t achieve any decisive effect.”
The people around him nodded.
“From today, the era in which the Jurchens were ‘invincible at ten thousand’ is well and truly over.”
Ning Yi said, “Wanyan Zonghan’s feelings right now must be very complicated. Later, write him a letter and send it over—his son is in my hands. See if he’s interested in talking things over with me.”
The sun was setting. It was nearly the second month, the season when all things come to life. Even creatures already grown old will not stop resisting this world. The continuation and cycles of this world have always gone on this way.